I have started a thread in another user forum here: http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/101773/how-to-determine-if-sharepoint-is-in-debug-mode
Essentially I have followed the steps outlined here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee231550.aspx to turn off debug output in the ULS. I have checked each web.config in each webapp of the farm, on each server in the farm, to ensure that callstack=false, customErrors mode=On and that compilation debug=false. I have performed IISReset and server restarts.
I see many messages in ULS that either have DEBUG within the message or "Write Debug Scope Start event..." and "Write Debug Scope End event..."
Do I need to perform some special 'redeployment' from within VS12? I would think an IISReset would do the trick after changing the web.config ?